Eggshells
by TnT6713
Summary: "Your name is John Egbert, and you are returning home for what may be the final time." Sadstuck.
1. Chapter 1

Your name is John Egbert. You are eighteen years old, and you are returning home for what may be the final time. You're wearing a suit, a white suit. Your dad got you an almost identical suit for your thirteenth birthday. You've got nice black dress shoes on. You're wearing a tie. You've cleaned up nicely, you think.

You've just come from your father's wedding. Rose's mother looked nice in her dress. Rose looked nice, too. They suit each other well, you think, Rose's mom and your dad. She's a good mom and he's a good dad and they deserve to be happy. You haven't seen your dad smile so much since you turned thirteen.

You haven't seen him at all since you turned thirteen.

He would have wanted you to be his best man, but he doesn't know you're alive. You entered that game—that _game_—and left your world behind. You left him behind.

You know Rose had seen you today. It had been an outdoor ceremony, so easy to sneak into. She had looked beautiful up there, in a long lilac dress made of some sort of starchy satin. She had looked right at you—right _through_ you—and smiled. It was a sad little motion, and it pulled on your heart _just so_, and you wanted to smile back, you really did, but you just _couldn't_.

She looked so different without her black lipstick.

She looked so different without her martini.

He looked so different without his fedora.

You looked so different without your father.

At one point, you could have sworn you saw him looking at you, but he quickly looked away, back to his blushing bride—for once flushing with feelings, not from the vodka in her blood. They said their vows, their smiles carrying on their voices all the way to the back of the garden, all the way to you. The words sounded so _right_ coming from his mouth and you should have been there, god _damn_ it you should have been up there with him. You should have been there, his son, his friend, his best man.

But you couldn't.

You had ascended to God Tier; how could you go back to the simple life, the Boy-Skylark you once were?

That was an hour ago. The reception won't be over for ages. You decided now would be the best time to come back home—no danger of running into him.

You slowly wind your way through the house, fondly regarding every small bit of furniture. You almost begin to cry as you pass Nanna's portrait, smiling down at you like she always has. If only she could see you now.

"I've made it," you want to tell her. "I made it to God Tier and I survived those three years on that ship and I beat the game and I'm back. I'm home and I'm happy and I'm safe."

But you're not.

So you don't.

You find yourself in the kitchen. He loved to make cakes. He was always baking, you remember. You wonder if he still does.

There's an eeriness laid over the house as you climb the stairs—something feels wrong. Something feels empty.

The walls are so _white_.

It's the harlequins, you realize. You don't see any harlequin dolls.

You thought he loved those things. Why would he get rid of them? Does Rose's mother not like them? You're sure she'd let him keep his harlequins—she has her collection of wizards, as well. The dolls, though, why would he get rid of the dolls? He loved them. They were everywhere. You put up with them for years, just because he loved them. You never realized how different the house looks without them. It scares you. It makes you feel empty. It makes you feel cold.

How long ago did he get rid of them? It's been five years since you've been home. Has he kept them this whole time, and only recently given up hope that his son would return? Or did he pack them up shortly after you entered the game? Had he known this whole time that you would not come back?

You shake your head. You don't want to know.

You're at the end of the hall. One door left to open. One last bond to break.

Your room.

You're scared to open the door. You do it anyway.

You feel like you're thirteen again. Everything is exactly the same, exactly where you left it. Your bed is still in the corner. Your posters are still all over the walls. Con-Air, Ghost Busters, Little Monsters, Problem Sleuth. Even your Matthew McConaughey shrine is still there. That man is such a quality actor. Your younger self had good taste.

Your magician's chest is still by the window, underneath your calendar, which is still open to April, 2009. The 13th still has a red smiley face on it, complete with a hokey birthday hat. There's still a big red X over the 10th. That was when Sburb Beta came out. God, you were so excited. It was just a game, you used to think. Just a really cool-looking game.

You were so wrong.

You want to open the chest, but you're scared of what you'll find inside. You're scared of touching anything. You're scared he'll know you were here.

So you don't.

Your computer is still on the desk in the far corner. Next to it still lays that copy of GameBro, the one that convinced you to play Sburb in the first place. Scowling, you turn away. You don't want to think about it. You don't want to look at it.

Instead, you look at your dresser. The note is still sitting there, the note from your father that came with the Little Monsters poster. It doesn't smell like aftershave anymore.

_Happy birthday, Son. I am so proud of you._

Your chest hurts, as if your ribcage has suddenly gotten smaller, tighter, leaving less room for your heart to beat or your lungs to expand with air. You get just a little choked up and something wet is sliding down your cheek and _no_, you will not cry. Not now, not like this. You hastily wipe the stray tear on your sleeve, not even caring about the now wet splotch on your nice white suit.

There's something else in the room, something you have refused to acknowledge. You don't want to see it. You don't want it to be real.

But it's staring you in the face. It's been staring you in the face for years.

The writing on the walls.

The scribbles on your posters, the defacing of those beautiful actors you once admired so much, the slander scraped into the paint. Blue and purple and red and green, a hearty circus, a wildfire. Words like _fool _and _loser_ and _lame kid_ have been splattered across the ceiling, across your beloved possessions. For so many years, you had tuned them out. They were subconsciously erased, so that it took the examination of your father's room for you to even see them. It took entering his life for you to finally wake up.

And even then, you had refused to believe you would do this to yourself. You had laughed when Rose said they had always been there. You blamed the imps. It must have been the imps.

It hurts to remember.

You can't help it; you reach out and touch the writing. The long-dried paint is bumpy beneath your fingers, as if it wants to hide an unsightly blemish. You can see where the paint wanted to drip, where gravity pulled the edges of the letters _just so_. Like the letters were crying, and their makeup was dripping.

You realize then, stupidly, suddenly, that this house has not been inhabited in months. You had forgotten to notice the dust on the shelves in the kitchen, or the smell of emptiness in the living room. Or maybe you didn't want to notice it. Maybe you blocked it out on purpose, just as you had blocked out the writing on the walls for so many years.

Maybe that's where all the harlequin dolls went. He must have brought them with him when he moved out. Why, then, is all the furniture still here? The door was unlocked when you came in—could he have known you were coming? No, no… he thinks you're dead. He's seen your gravestone.

You've seen it, too.

_John Egbert, 1996-2012._

He's probably living with Rose and her mother now. They probably have plenty of their own furniture already. They probably don't need his. That's why it's still here, you think. He doesn't want to sell it.

He wants you to come back and take it.

Yes, that must be where all the harlequins went. He must have taken them with him.

Except you know he didn't. Why would he? He never liked the harlequins. He _loved_ them, you think. You try to convince yourself, just as you had been convincing yourself for years. But you saw his room—his room, the one room you hadn't even considered revisiting—and it was completely void of anything resembling a clown.

Wait. What was that thing that you thought earlier? _Blue and purple and red and green, a hearty circus, a wildfire._

A hearty circus.

Rose was right all along.

He didn't like the harlequins. They were for you.

There's that constriction in your chest again, and your vision blurs with hot tears, but you don't stop them this time.

Your name is John Egbert. You are eighteen years old and you are crying in your childhood bedroom, your fingers still trailing down unevenly painted hate.

You can't do this anymore. You need to get out. You need to leave. You need to leave and you need to stop wanting to come back. You can't keep coming back.

You slam the door behind you. You run down the stairs. You stop to smile at Nanna's portrait, but only briefly. The front door, you can see it. It's so close now. Sweet, sweet relief.

Outside, the air is cool but still, almost stale, as if the breeze has been frozen in place. You close your eyes and inhale deeply, letting a few tears roll down your cheeks.

You need to leave this behind, once and for all.

The memories crack like eggshells.


	2. Chapter 2

You have a name, but you go by Mr. Egbert. Some people used to call you John's Dad, but they don't anymore. You don't anymore. You're still in your tuxedo, sleek and dark and clean. Your head feels so much lighter without the fedora; empty, exposed, somber. Dizzy, you feel dizzy.

You know you shouldn't be here. You're still just a little bit tipsy from the reception, and you should be heading home. But you're not. You drove back to your old house, the house you used to live in. The house you had with John. You close your eyes, inhaling shakily, and open the door.

You step inside.

For a second, you almost swear it smells like him, like he's been here. But you open your eyes and it's gone.

All the furniture is exactly where you left it, coated with a thick layer of dust. You don't know how old it is, how long it's been sitting there. You don't want to know.

Your mother's portrait smiles down on you, but there's something different about it, a wicked glint in her eye, as if she knows something you don't.

"What is it?" you sigh. "What am I missing?"

She doesn't answer, and you don't know why you're disappointed. She's a portrait. You don't know what you were expecting. Perhaps some sort of drunken miracle or the work of one of Roxy's wizards? But you know it's absurd. You know magic isn't real.

Then again, the way Rose talks sometimes, you wouldn't be surprised if it were.

The air in this room is old, like it's been sitting still for years, but stirred, as if there's been a recent breeze. But you know there hasn't. Who would have been here? John? No. John is dead. Your son, your only son, is dead.

You visit his gravestone regularly. You remember the memorial service, every minute of it. It could have been yesterday. It could have been ten god damn minutes ago. No, no, ten minutes ago, you were in the car, driving fifteen miles under the speed limit, just to be sure you didn't hit anyone in your inebriated state. It's not even as though you're really drunk enough to be considered drunk; tipsy, at best. You had less than four—was it four?—cocktails at the reception, mostly because the majority of the bar had already been claimed by your fiancée—sorry, your wife.

_Wife_.

The word sounds strange in your head.

"Wife."

The word tastes strange in your mouth.

You've never been married before. Married. You're married. You have a wife, you're moving on. Your wife has a daughter. You have a daughter. You can be a parent again, you can be a father.

But it's not the same.

Rose is a great kid, but she's not your John. She's old enough to be living on her own anyway; you guess she only still lives at home so someone could take care of Roxy, make sure she doesn't drink too much, make sure she's okay. But you're there now. She doesn't need to stay.

You remember the first time you met her, two years ago. She knew John; she had played that game with him, that game you had gotten for his thirteenth birthday. The last time you had seen him, he was waiting for that game. But Rose had seen him. Her and the Harley girl and the Strider boy. They played with him. They saw him. They came back.

Three years later, they all came back.

But not John.

The Harley girl—Jade, her name was Jade—was the last one to see him. That was in 2012. That was two years ago.

Last year, on what would have been his birthday, you finally accepted the truth.

Your son was dead.

Nobody knew when. Nobody knew how. Nobody knew why. Nobody could find a body to bury. But he had to be dead, it was the only explanation. If he was alive, he would have come back. You are, were, and always will be absolutely sure of it.

He would have come back.

You look up. When did you stumble into the kitchen? The oven looks like it might still work, if the electricity to this place hasn't been disconnected. You haven't paid bills for this house in months. Even if it did work, you wouldn't do anything with it. You've spent far too much time already just standing in front of this oven, waiting for your cakes to cool.

Roxy loves your cakes.

John loved your cakes.

The cake at the wedding—_your_ wedding—was delicious. It was vanilla and chocolate with strawberry frosting and you could have sworn it was taller than the bride—_your_ bride—even in her heels.

You shake your head, turning back towards the door. You don't want to think about cake anymore

This house looks so bare without the harlequins. You packed them all up after John's memorial service. You didn't have enough boxes for all of them. Rose had to go out and buy some more. You didn't have the heart to get rid of them. The boxes are stacked in Roxy's basement—_your_ basement—like a wall of cardboard. A big, ominous, haunting wall of cardboard.

She would have let you unpack them, display them around the house with her wizards.

"_They can be friends!_" she had said.

But you couldn't do it. Rose had said that displaying them would have allowed you to maintain a fantastical, contorted version of reality in which John was still alive. She said that keeping them was a mechanism for preserving his memory, but hiding them allowed you true comfort, true release.

You wouldn't have to pretend. You could come to terms with his death. You could move on.

You haven't moved on.

You even thought you might have seen him today, during the ceremony. You looked up for a second and there he was, sitting in the very back, with his thick glasses and messy hair and buck teeth. He looked older, mature, sad.

But you blinked, and he was gone.

You must have imagined it.

You're outside his bedroom door. You don't want to open it, you don't want to open it, you don't want to open it.

You open it.

You step inside.

You don't notice how nothing has moved in five years. You don't notice how the bed is still in the corner, the window is still open, the magician's chest is still under the calendar, which is still open to April, 2009. You don't notice the desk and the computer and the copy of GameBro, the dresser and your note, the Matthew McConaughey shrine, the countless movie posters.

You notice the writing on the walls.

You've always noticed the writing on the walls.

You can feel the tears welling in your eyes. It's just the alcohol, you tell yourself. It's just the alcohol. You are not crying in your dead son's bedroom. You are not captivated by the rainbow lettering, the cries of _fool_ and _loser_ and _lame kid_. He did not hate himself. It was not your fault.

It was not your fault.

It was always your fault.

You should have done more. Cakes and movie posters and little clown dolls—sure, he liked them, but you could have done so much _more_. You told him you were proud of him. You told him you loved him. You should have said it more often. It wasn't enough.

You never even got to say goodbye.

Your son, your John, your little boy. You didn't tell him you loved him often enough. You didn't tell him you were proud of him often enough. You were too wrapped up in business messages and pipes and fedoras and fatherly things, in cakes and harlequin dolls and paying for piano lessons.

You never got the chance to say goodbye.

So, instead, you say goodbye to his room, to his things, to his memories. You say goodbye to the paint on the wall, which has become a hypnotizing cacophony of colors, your vision blurred from tears. _It's not the alcohol_.

"I, ah—Goodbye," your voice cracks. Your throat is raw; the simple sounds hurt to even think of. Your breathing is ragged. You don't bother to wipe away the tide of tears crashing down your cheeks. You want it there. You want it to stay. You want this moment to stay.

You don't want it to be over.

You got married today. Your son should have been there. Your only son, your best friend. He should have been there, he should have stood beside you at the altar, in a nice tuxedo. He should have made a toast at the reception. He should have danced with Rose. He should have been there.

He shouldn't be dead.

You can vaguely hear someone sobbing, and you know their your own sobs, but they don't sound like your voice. They sound distant, faraway, diluted. They sound younger, higher, harsher.

They sound like John.

You don't know why you thought entering this room would be a good idea. You don't know why you thought entering this _house_ would be a good idea.

You slam the door behind you, nearly tripping over yourself as you scuttle down the stairs. You're sure the whole neighborhood can hear you crying by now.

You stumble again, and this time you hear yourself hit the floor before you feel it. You are lying on the ground next to the sofa, in your nice black tuxedo, crying harder than you can remember ever previously crying. You didn't cry when you found out John was dead. You didn't cry at his memorial service. You didn't cry as you were packing up the harlequins. But you're crying now.

Years and years of unshed tears, of uncried sobs, are all flooding out of you at once. You feel weak. You feel drained. You feel like grabbing a dusty pillow from the sofa, holding it tight, and not moving for days. You feel like pretending your son is still alive.

You don't know how much time has passed before you finally manage to stand up and wobble over to the door. It isn't until you have made it outside and the late-evening wind is smacking you in the face that you wonder how you're going to get home. You can't drive like this, tipsy and sobbing and barely awake.

You shake your head. You don't care. Roxy will have passed out by now, but when you get home, Rose will be there. Rose will hug you and bring you tea and tell you that John would be proud of you. She's a good kid, Rose. You're happy she stayed to take care of Roxy. You're happy she stayed to take care of you.

You get in the car, finally wiping the tears from your eyes. You begin driving away from this house for the very last time.

The memories crack like eggshells.


End file.
